Music Online: Listening | Alexander Street
Music Online: Listening

Music Online: Listening

Music Online: Listening is the most comprehensive and highest quality streaming audio collection to support the teaching and research of music.  It currently provides academic libraries with streaming access to over 10 million tracks*, and is growing monthly as new recordings are added.

The most comprehensive audio collection

Music Online: Listening provides coverage in breadth and depth across all the key musical genres:

  • Classical — All major genres and time periods from medieval to contemporary, from choral works to symphonies, operas, and the avant-garde.
  • Jazz   All major genres including vocal jazz, bebop, acid jazz, big band, modern jazz, and more.
  • World   Music from 169 countries and more than 1,000 cultural groups
  • American   Country, folk, jazz, bluegrass, Western, old time, American Indian, blues, gospel, R&B, and shape note singing.
  • Popular   Wide range of popular music from around the world that is not available in our genre-specific collections.
  • Historic Recordings   Music Online: Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries Volumes 1 + 2

The greatest artists

Here is a sample of the acclaimed artists that feature in our recordings:

  • Classical: Glenn Gould, Placido Domingo, Maria Callas, Claudio Abbado, Olga Borodina, Ileana Cotrubas, Hilary Hahn, Thomas Hampson, Radu Lupu, Karita Mattila, Margaret Leng Tan, Kiri Te Kanawa, Mitsuko Uchida, Pinchas Zuckerman.
  • Jazz: Bing Crosby, Buddy Guy, Charlie Parker, Chuck Mangione, Dinah Washington, Diana Krall, Dixie Dregs, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Stan Getz.
  • World: Ali Jihad Racy, Adama Dramé, Carlos Do Carmo, Parisa, Tran Quang Haï, Katrien Delavier, Hussein El Masry, Rassegna, Oedo Sukeroku Taiko, El Son Entero, Simon Shaneem, I Wayan Sadra, and Fawzy Al-Aiedy.
  • American: Pete Seeger, Isaac Hayes, Al Jackson, Booker T. Jones, Robert Byrd,  Memphis Slim, Otis Redding, BB King, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sweet Honey in the Rock.
  • Popular: Gloria Gaynor, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Kool & The Gang, Edith Piaf, Rod Stewart, The Sex Pistols, A Flock of Seagulls, Tanya Tucker, Naughty by Nature, Wu-Tang Clan, Liberace.

Unique, rare, and exclusive recordings

We ensure our collections include the valuable recordings needed to support effective teaching and research, including:

  • EMI: Almost 50,000 recordings featuring labels such as Blue Note, Virgin Classics, Angel Records, Capitol Records, Chrysalis, and Narada.
  • Universal: Nearly 10,000 recordings featuring labels like Verve, Motown, A&M, Decca, Polygram, MCA, and Island Def Jam.
  • Smithsonian: More than 40,000 recordings available from the Smithsonian’s archives, including the entire output of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Folkways Records, Cook Records, Dyer-Bennet Records, Fast Folk, Monitor Records, and Paredon Records.
  • Archives: Unique and previously unpublished recordings from important archives including the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the International Library of African Music (ILAM) at Rhodes University in South Africa, and the Archive Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE) in India.
  • Specially recorded: Exclusive audio recordings of hundreds of traditional American folk songs by acclaimed folklorist/folksinger Jerry Silverman.


*Music Online: Listening track counts vary by type of institution and region


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